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Nourishment for body, nourishment for faith
by Marta Langland
The season turns once again from Winter to Spring ripening the produce that jumps forth from our earth. A busy time of harvesting begins for farmers spread across the Central Valley as they put in extra hours to provide food for our tables. This food is often transported across the country or out of the country while most of us here fill our plates with food coming from equally far away places. We grab a snack from the grocery store shelves or from restaurants and so easily fall into a mental pattern thinking our food comes only from these sources. Neatly packaged and marketed with logos – this is the food most of us know and consume today. Rarely do we remember where the food originated from beyond the shelves or what work has been put forth by farmers to get it there. We quickly become removed from farming and in some ways from the earth through our habits and relationships with this current food system.
Sacred Heart parish in Salinas Valley has taken special care to work on these issues and maintain a relationship between those who grow our food and the consumers who enjoy it. A local and organic farmer cooperative from Salinas Valley called ALBA, (The Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association) has been working with Sacred Heart for the second year in a row to build this link between where our food comes from, who grows it, and how it is valued. ALBA is a unique organization that trains aspiring farmers how to implement organic farming techniques and how to be financially successful as a small-scale, local and organic farmer.
The partnership between the parish and ALBA has been established through a farmstand set up outside the church on Sundays for parish families and neighbors to visit. It has acted as an opportunity for solidarity between the two groups and stewardship for both our earth and our practice of faith. The farmstand brings an awareness and a face to those who till the soil and work directly with the earth. For most farmworkers, especially those in large-scale farms, the wages are gruesomely low and result in poverty-stricken groups of farmworkers. These farmers trained by ALBA, however, have small-scale plots of land where they work hard independently but have opportunities to earn enough to escape this poverty. Through this farmstand, they are able to receive just compensation for their strenuous work in the fields and a fair trade is created between the farmers and parishioners.
The presence of the farmstand manifests many of the Catholic Social Teaching values, and provides an opportunity for parishioners to act on their faith through their consumer choices. The dignity of the farmworker is acknowledged and their strenuous work becomes recognized as vital to our own lives. The right to food is increasingly present for the farmers as they receive more money and are able to provide sustenance for their own families. Parish- ioners, too, support the right to food as they are provided with healthy and wholesome nourishment that often can replace poor nutritional choices. The farmstand works towards the common good and promotes participation and community involvement as the two groups work together in solidarity. We respect creation as we recognize the food from the farmstand as pure gifts from the land, provided for us from the relationship between the sun and the earth and by the work of human hands.
These values, ingrained in our faith, have been naturally unveiled as the farmstand has developed. The connection from the parish to the farm has allowed for greater dialogue around faith and parishioners are able to take something from their life everyday, food, and recognize the divine in it. ALBA has hosted visitors from the parish as well to work towards solidarity and this vital connection between the farmers and parish. The farmstand on Sunday mornings at Sacred Heart bearing fruits and vegetables from our local land has invited parishioners to act on their care for the earth and put Catholic social teachings into personal and communal practice. A harvest of faith is being created in a nook of Salinas Valley that we can only hope will continue to grow and spread through the community.
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